


Northern Lights (God of War)

by Farore



Category: GoW - Fandom, God of War (2018) - Fandom, God of War (Video Games), God of War 4
Genre: Angst, Eyes of a Child, F/M, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Father-Son Relationship, Fear of Death, Hurt/Comfort, Mother-Son Relationship, Motherhood, Romance, Sins of the Father, mom and dad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-20
Updated: 2019-04-20
Packaged: 2020-01-22 19:27:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18533974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Farore/pseuds/Farore
Summary: An aurora borealis appears over the home of Kratos, Faye, and a 2-year-old Atreus causing all of them a unique reaction to the event.A family fluff short story I whipped up to celebrate the 1 year anniversary of my favorite game.Happy birthday to God of War!





	Northern Lights (God of War)

**Author's Note:**

> # ᚨᛋ ᚹᛖ ᚨᚱᛖ  
>  ᚹᛖ ᛏᚹᛟ  
>  ᚹᛖ ᛏᚺᚱᛖᛖ  
>  _ᚨᛋ ᛁ ᚨᛚᛟᚾᛖ ᚹᛁᛚᛚ ᚾᛖᚹᛖᚱ ᛒᛖ_
> 
>  
> 
>   
> -God of War 2018

### Το φάντασμα της Σπάρτης

It wasn't Kratos’ first time seeing the sky like this. Had he been a simpler man, it might’ve become as familiar to him as the layer of icy snow his boots had sunken into. He shifted into a defensive stance, assessing his situation from a tactician's point of view. He only had the two small knives on him. In his mind raced several scenarios of how he would use both to kill whatever emerged from the sinister looking lights.  
‘A simple man,’ Kratos thought to himself as he began to pivot his neck slightly, catching a glimpse of his home behind him. Warm reassuring smoke was seen erupting from a hearth he helped build. The slightest hint of salmon cooked with herbs caught his nose. A meal cooked by the woman who worked alongside him, aiding him with constructing everything into place.  
All _this._  
He forced his eyes shut and stood up straight, recognizing the absurdity of his forestalling homicidal thoughts the verdant lights were giving him. This wasn't the simplistic reasonings a mortal would have, but the solicitude of a maniacal god.  
The past 50 years of him trying to forget, of him trying to live as a man rather than a god.  
After everything that's happened, could he ever truly be a simple man?  
Was he a fool for even trying? For attempting a life such as this one? Attaching himself to mortals who would eventually slip away with time.  
A dull ache of remorse immediately pierced his ego after reducing Faye to such a depiction, these damn lights always trifled with his mind.  
The sound of small toddling feet too light to sink fully into the snow pulls his attention back in front of him as his 2-year-old son backed slowly into his legs. The fledgling was so small Kratos managed to catch a glimpse of his expression by simply tilting his eyes downward.  
The boy was scared.  
_“Μικρέ?”_ Kratos questioned. His son didn't take his eyes off the green flickering lights spilling across the night sky to respond. With small trembling hands the boy reached for the woolen cloth of Kratos’ trousers, just below his knee. He then repositioned himself slightly behind his father, all while keeping his eyes pinned to the strange sky.  
_“Φοβάστε?”_ Kratos asked, forgetting his own uneasiness the lights were giving him and instead focusing on how they made the child feel. Atreus drifted his cerulean eyes away from the rays and into his own. The look of fear subtly leaving his small pupils, but what replaced it with an emotion Kratos couldn't quite distinguish.  
The gravity of paternal instinct weighed heavily on Kratos. The impulse to lean down and pick his frightened child up overwhelmed him. But like with many of Kratos' budding emotions, it fell like water through his fingers before ever reaching his lips.  
_“Αυτά τα φώτα κάνουν τη μητέρα σας χαρούμενη.”_ He said firmly in the language he shared only with his son. It would be better off for both of them if the boy's mother handled this. She knew more of this phenomenon than he. _“Πες της να έρθει να δει.”_  
_“ναι πατέρα,”_ Atreus said, releasing his hold onto Kratos’ trousers and running towards their house.  
Kratos turned to watch the boy toddle quickly inside, exposing his back to the green light that flickered eerily in the sky above him. If his fears were right and the lights were, in fact, an omen of something or someone watching him, Kratos had foolishly left himself open to their attack. He would worry about that later, right now he kept his eyes on the boy, ready to lunge forward in an instant if need be. Intuition was right, the toddler almost lost his balance several times running in the wet snow, but no intervention was necessary.  
Once he confirmed Atreus made it to the door, Kratos turned back around to face the sky. Memories of long ago when the sky above his homeland shifted unnaturally began to drift into his mind. Acid laced thoughts of past injustices and sins smolder up in his stomach, ascending upwards into the back of his throat. **Alone** with only these thoughts, they begin to suffocate the God of War in a sea of bitter rage and silent torment from the inside out. 

### ᛚᚨᚢᚠᛖᛃ ᛏᚺᛖ ᛃᚢᛋᛏ

Faye winced slightly as she pulled the last wooden stake out from the sizzling hot fish. Planked salmon was Atreus’ favorite, but the boy hated it served cold. She wasn't in the mood to deal with a two-year-old’s temper tantrum tonight, and she didn’t need foresight to know what may follow her little jötunn's outburst. Her husband’s foolhardy attempt to reason with an irritated toddler, usually resulting in not one, but two stubborn and upset Spartans on her hands. She suffered through the pain of pulling apart the salmon while it was still piping hot, digging each and every bone out one by one in preparation for Atreus to eat. That way, by the time she finally wrangled the boy to the table to eat, the winter’s chill would've brought his meal to an enjoyable warm temperature instead of an unappetizing frigid one if she'd simply wait for it to cool off first. In her rush, Faye plunged her ring finger into a thin needlepoint bone. With her teeth clenched shut she pulled a gasp of air inwards, letting go of the chunks of fish to assess her scathing hand.  
She managed to draw blood, not much but enough for the salt she cooked the fish in to find its way into her nerves and begin to sting.  
Slowly, Faye brought the digit up to her lips and slid the tip into her mouth. Tasting the crimson dewdrop on her finger.  
As the flavors of oil, salt, and a hint of iron tingle her senses. A sudden awareness of her simplistic domesticated situation overcame her. She lifted the palm of her other hand to gaze at her softening skin before turning to face a wooden pillar holding up the structure of her family’s home. Resting dutifully in an iron ring the shape of her beloved friend hung the Leviathan. Faye removed the finger from her lips in order to rub her hands together. Feeling how demure her exterior had started to become.  
An impudent smile pulled her cheeks upwards as she kept her eyes on the weapon, recalling a time when her hands weren't nearly as soft and delicate as they are now. She returned her attention back to the meal she was lovingly preparing for her husband and son. Bravely allowing her mind to wander off to a distant time, ready to face whatever emotion the memories stir up along the way. Even with all the horror she once faced, Faye often found more courage thinking of her past,  


rather than ~~her future.~~

### Loki

Atreus pushed against the wooden door with all of his might. The boy always revered watching his father open doors, the way he did it so effortlessly. Nearly everything came easily to his father the toddler was slowly realizing. He was the strongest person he knew. Once, he saw him pick up the table they ate dinner on all by himself. After bearing witness to such a feat of strength, nothing the 2-year-old imagined up could ever stand in father’s way. Only now that the boy was spending more and more time with his father, did he pick up on these things. Atreus had spent so much of his life in the arms of his mother, listening to her sing sweetly to him, feeding him, loving him. All at once, something started to shift in the way the boy’s mother would coddle him, and the adjustment following wasn't easy. A few seasons ago, Atreus’ mother stopped picking him up whenever the boy demanded. She transitioned him to sleep in a different bed apart from her own, more importantly, she stopped feeding him her milk every morning. Instead, she would send Atreus outside to be with his father while she prepared lessons for him to learn later in the afternoon. At first, the boy’s father didn't speak to him when they were alone together. Instead, he would make strange nonsensical noises but string them together as if he was speaking in a low rumble of “pahs” and “tohs.” There was one sound he used a lot, the one he would make when he wanted to get his attention. It almost sounded like his father was calling him “gray” but would use a “meh” sound before it. It was incredibly lonely being with him compared to mother. Finally, after a week or so, the boy’s father began speaking to him in a way he could understand. Atreus could only recall his father smiling once, and it was the day he first responded to one of his father's questions.  
_“μαμά,”_ Atreus called from the door, coming to terms with the lack of his father’s strength to open it.  
_“Atreus? I’m coming sweet boy, hold on,”_ he heard her say.  
The way she spoke, the words she used. It all sounded normal, but whenever he went from a day outside talking with his father to inside speaking with her it made not his body, but his mind slightly dizzy.  
Before the boy could realize the door had been opened, he found himself scooped up in his mother’s loving arms.  
_“Where is your hat? It's freezing outside.”_ She said dragging her soft, warm fingers past the wisps of his hair and along his scalp. She feathered her touch down to his chilly freckle laced cheek and rubbed the side of her index finger lovingly along his face. _“Dinner is almost ready, go tell father…-”_  
_“He said come see.”_ Atreus interrupted, determined to complete his father’s errand. He wiggled his right hand free from her embrace and pointed to the sky.  
The boy’s mother tilted her head slightly to the left as her eyes followed his gesture.  
_“Oh! Oh, yay!”_ She said as a smile warmer than the sun itself appeared on her face. _“Atreus, do you see the lights? We call this norðrljós,”_ She said as she leaned down to press her own cheek against his own, directing both their faces upwards to the greenlit sky. _“Isn't it beautif…-”_  
She paused her joyful banter abruptly as a panicked look of uncertainty crept into her eyes. With no warning, she ran outside with Atreus bouncing violently in her arms. The boy clenched onto his mother’s thin shift dress as she trudged through the snow in her bare feet. Finally, after several moments, she began to slow down and steady herself. Her frantic breathing subsided with one final sigh of relief as she readjusted her hold onto Atreus, positioning him onto the side of her hip and freeing her right arm. Only then could Atreus take in their new surrounding and see that his father was a few feet in front of them.  
His mother walked calmly and gracefully towards him. _“Isn't it beautiful?”_ She said again to Atreus, not one hint of breathlessness in her voice. The boy’s father relaxed his shoulders from their stiff elevated position as he turned to leer at the two of them. Snow must have fallen while the two of them were inside momentarily, Atreus figured, seeing the top of his father’s white forehead drenched in droplets of water. He wondered if the green lights in the sky caused his eyes to play tricks on him? For a moment, his father’s normally yellow eyes appeared red.  
His mother approached him, gliding her hand over a clenched fist held at father’s side. Atreus returned his focus on the spectacular night sky above the three of them, not noticing his father’s hand opening up to intertwine his fingers with his mother's.  
_“I’m so happy I didn't miss them. Thank you for letting me know this was happening.”_ She said, leaving the boy unsure who exactly she was talking to. A low rumbling hum came from his father in response. Her now chilly hand holding onto Atreus squeezed him tightly for a second, _“Whenever I see the sky like this, it reminds me of, of my home, my old home, far away from here.”_  
Atreus felt his father’s massive hand press onto the flat of his back, reaching for his tiny shoulder and pulling the two of them closer to him. He felt his mother's face move away from him as it leaned against father.  
_“I see,”_ he said in a deep muted voice as the three of them stood underneath the greenlit sky.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you all so much for a year of incredible fanfiction. This community has blossomed into something truly special and I hope it continues delivering incredible works in the years to come. 
> 
> I've met so many wonderful people through my little obsession with Laufey, and the relationships and opportunities that have come from all this continue to blow me away. While the world celebrates SMS for an incredible game they worked so hard I wanted to take a moment to celebrate you the fanfiction community for all that you do to add the cherry on top of an **amazing** story. <3
> 
> Follow me on  
> [Tumblr ](https://farore5.tumblr.com/) and [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Farore5) Or check out my other [God of War Fanfics.](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14731989/chapters/34054095)


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